Refreshing Lemon Cake.

I don't know about you, but after Valentine's Day I am in chocolate overload! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would turn down chocolate. When it came time to make my birthday cake there was no way I was going to make the flourless chocolate cake I had my eye on. If anyone tried my truffle recipe you know just how delicious and rich they are. So for my birthday cake I was thinking LEMON!! After researching some recipes online I came up with a combination of what I thought would work. I like lemon, I just don't like it to be overpowering. Mission complete because it turned out very well.

OK, this recipe starts off with a lot of bowls. By a lot I mean, three. In a small bowl, mix the sour cream, coconut milk and lemon juice (looks kinda gross but trust me) then set aside for the final step. In a large bowl beat the butter until light and creamy. This is where those amazing Kitchen Aid mixers come in handy, I however, do not have one so I was trying to balance my handheld mixer while adding the ingredients. (If anyone reading this is interested in getting me a belated birthday present I am more than happy to email you my address !!!!) Continue mixing the butter while you add the sugar, until it's light and fluffy. Add vanilla and lemon zest, mix well, be sure to scrape the side of the bowl. Add in eggs, one at a time. In the third bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Alternate adding the flour mixture and sour cream mixture, ending with the flour in the large bowl. This recipe fills three 9 inch cake pans, making for one tall deliciously moist cake! Butter and lightly flour the cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. In my oven it was done around 30 minutes. While that is baking or cooling, make the filling. Take a pint of raspberries and wash them, leaving a few out for decorating. Start by adding about a tablespoon of lemon juice and a half cup of sugar to the saucepan. When the sugar is dissolved add a couple leaves of mint, finally adding the raspberries stir gently and try to avoid breaking up the raspberries as much as possible. The whole process takes a minute or two. Now that I am thinking about it, it was probably pointless to add the mint because the impact wasn't even evident. I will use the mint and raspberries for a "salsa" at a later point in time. I will use lime next time, and the thought of it makes my mouth water. The idea of cooking the raspberries is to make them slightly syrup-y but so they are still pretty much whole because if you cook them too long the syrup is going to drip out of your cake. The frosting is the easiest and in my opinion the most delicious part. The ingredients are: 16 ounces of confectionary sugar, 1 stick of room temperature butter, 16 ounces of reduced fat cream cheese, lemon zest and coconut milk. I'd like to say that I measured the lemon zest and coconut milk, but I just "eyeballed" it. I aimed for about a tsp of coconut milk and a bit more than a tsp of lemon zest. If you're hesitant to try the frosting with coconut milk then substitute vanilla. It will be equally as good.